


His Shadow Grows Longer

by BloodiedRose



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Death, Implied/Referenced Pet Death, M/M, Multi, Personification of Death, Polyamory, Suicide, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-19 08:30:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7353532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodiedRose/pseuds/BloodiedRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death comes to take Henry Morgan. Death falls in love instead.</p><p>AU in which Adam is Death, but is mostly compatible with canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. My Name Is Death

**Author's Note:**

> Well this fic came out of nowhere. Title comes from Die Schatten werden langer (the shadows grow longer) from the musical Elisabeth, about a woman's often romantic relationship with Death.

The woman could breathe only shallow breaths. Sharp rattles to reflect the death she drew ever closer to. Only twenty nine, young to be joining his halls. But he had taken younger. She coughed, once, then again, until she was lifted from her bed with the force of her aching lungs. Blood stained her chin, dark against her pale pallor. Eyes bright with fever gazed up at him, a silent plea echoing from inside. A plea for what, he did not know. 

For some it was to let them live, to allow their feeble lives to continue for just a little longer. Others begged him to take them, and quickly, desiring only that their torment be over. Both were a request for mercy, and some days he desired to be merciful. Yet the two requests were so near in desire, yet so opposite, that on some occasions he granted the wrong one. Cursed a soul instead of appeasing it. He did not grant desires much anymore. It was not in his nature to be merciful.

Candlelight swayed in the draft, the woman’s maid tip-toeing about in an attempt to make her mistress comfortable without disturbing her. A cool cloth was placed on the woman’s forehead to soothe her fever, a small sip of water eased down her throat. Gently, the maid dabbed at the woman’s chin to remove the blood. Then, the maid sat on a stool at the woman’s bedside, fisted her hand in her skirts, and waited. 

It would be a short wait. The woman’s husband had been called into town. He had refused the invitation, but the woman had sent him away. It had only been a small cough, not enough to fret over she had said. Only in need of some bed rest and a hot bath. He had kissed her cheek goodbye, wrapped her shawl tighter around her, and watched her smiling face as his coach carried him off into the distance. She had fallen ill too quickly for him to return in time. No children waited to send off their mother, her parents far off in the north. Only a maid at her bedside, watching over her final breaths. 

Another rasp, a soft whimper of pain escaping the woman’s lips. If she had more energy, she would clutch her chest, complain of the stabbing pain that she had been afflicted with the day before. She had no energy now, not even enough to open her dark eyes for one last time. Candlelight dancing as her maid hummed gently to her, a soft lullaby descending from mothers to their children. 

It was time. He leaned forward, his lips nearing closer to hers. They touched, soft as the wings of a butterfly. Gentle as he drew from her her last breath. Took soul from body, into his heart and home. It took minutes for the maid to realise her mistress was now a corpse. She fled from the room, and a wailing consumed the household as the news spread. Torches were lit in black halls, shouts to retrieve the priest, the undertaker, and their master. The candlelight flickered, and died. 

\---

It was a disease ravaging the countryside. It caused a fever that did not leave no matter how often one sweated through the sheets, a chill that settled into the bones, and a harsh ache behind the eyes. Soon it settled into the lungs, rotting them. From then, it was inevitable, to die weak and under the sway of delirium. He had taken many people through this disease. The old, the infirm, the healthy, and the newborns. And yet it was a boy that gave him pause.

He lay with his siblings, in the bed of their parents for it was all that was fit for all of them. A fire raged near them, but it was not enough to keep them warm, each trembling under the covers of their bed in spite of the fever heat that radiated off each of them. It had been a servant in the kitchens which had caught the disease, and passed it on to his master’s children and only the children. Both parents were in perfect health, it would be some time before he would need to come for them.

It was not the boy he was there for, at least not yet. He still had a day or so left in him, clinging desperately to each breath he could take. He was strong. His sister, young and feeble, was not. She shook terribly, sweat dotting her brow. Every few moments she let out a cry, a heaving wet cough. He would not have to wait at all.

He neared closer, ready for taking.

“No, please.” It was the boy, a weak voice cracked with illness and a throat weakened by his rebelling lungs. Delirium, they would say when they thought of it. Delirium, he would say also. But the boy was looking right at him. 

_You can see me._ The boy winced. His voice was not meant for mortal ears, the impending doom and decaying worlds too strong to be penetrated directly into their minds. And yet, the boy did not cower, or even look away. Instead he nodded. He abandoned the girl, crossing to the other side of the bed so he could loom over her brother.

“Please don’t take her. Let them live. Please.” It took minutes for the boy to get out a sentence, stopping to wheeze breaths into his damaged lungs. Pleading for their own life was most common, but to plead for a loved one was hardly unusual. For the boy to see him was a rarity, but it had happened before, even if one was not so close to the end.

_Why should I?_

“I’ll give you my life,” said the boy, before coughing took him and he could not speak. He waited as the boy spat blood onto his already stained shirt. It took moments for him to be able to speak again. “My life… for theirs.”

He laughed. The boy winced again, hearing the wails of tormented souls in their last moments of life. 

_I will have your life soon, as well as that of your siblings. You have nothing to give me._

A common bargain, one never thought through. He did not need consent to take a soul. Why take only one soul, when you could have two just the same? He began to move back to the girl, when a hand grabbed his wrist. It was a feeble grasp, the shaking hands of a dying child. But it was a grasp all the same. None should be able to touch him. 

“I can take something from you.” A letter opener was being pressed into his wrist. He looked down at it, as it pierced through him and dug deep. There was no pain, no blood, but a curiosity took him. It was such a spectacle, to see someone so weak attempt such a drastic action. It should be pitiful.

_You cannot kill Death, child._

His eyes shone with tears. Distress, disappointment, a marriage of grief and anger. So young. So terribly young. He collapsed onto the bed, all energy drained away. In a strange sway of emotion, he reached out and touched the boy’s forehead in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. Was granted a flash of the boy’s memories.

_Close your eyes, Henry Morgan._

The boy fell into sleep, exhaustion overtaking him. He stood up, walking to the sister. There was only a brief moment of hesitation, and then he took her life. It tasted sweet, the unremarkable life of every noble girl growing in the countryside. He took another sibling as well, for good measure, and the servant too. He did not take the boy.

\---

Sunlight was beating down on the fields, washing away the death and decay as the illness neared its last. He had returned to young Henry’s beside, watching as the boy slept through the spring day and the grief that still encompassed him. He had not removed the letter opener in his arm. It entertained him to study it, to press the rotted skin around the wound and move the instrument about, ever so slightly. 

He was doing just that when Henry woke, his breathing becoming hurried when he noticed his visitor. Fear caused his heart to pound so heavily, but it was anger that strengthened it. The boy hadn’t the strength to raised his head, so he watched from his pillows. Hatred burning in his eyes. 

“I asked you to take my life for theirs. Instead I live and they do not.”

_I left you your eldest sister._

“And took two others in her place!” A cough, heaving and painful, but it did not result in any blood. “John was barely even sick, damn you!”

It was true. The eldest brother had received only the lightest brush of the illness, with fever and aches but no infection in the lungs. He was the only Morgan child that should have lived, until he had been struck by a sudden rapid spread of the infection, and died only hours after he turned ill. 

_I am… unfamiliar with mercy. It is not in my nature to give without taking in return._

“I told you to take me!” Henry cried, a passionate wail he heard mostly from the cursed. Grief. Pure, bitter grief. “Why didn’t you?”

_Curiosity, child. It confuses the best of us._

Henry turned away from him. He could hear the child’s soft weeping, and could not help the stirring of an unfamiliar emotion in his gut. How dare the boy be so distressed? He had not taken all of his family, the boy should be grateful he had any siblings left. Normally, he would not be so kind. And yet, he could not bring himself to leave.

Henry woke alone, with the letter opener at his bedside.

\---

Excepting that illness, Henry was not a sickly child. Though the recovery took him some time, by his fourteenth birthday he was once again a fit young man and the pride of his father. It would likely not be until old age that he would die. And yet, he waited. Watched the boy as he grew into a man, happy and kind in spite of the grief that weighed on his heart. 

He did not know why he continued to return to Henry. He was no more interesting than the millions other souls he had taken. And yet, somehow he was far more infuriating. It had been a Sunday afternoon when he was about to take the life of a dog, some runt that had been left to the rain for too long, when Henry had run up to him and pleaded for the life of the mutt as well.

_It is ill._

“I will care for it. Give me the chance to make him better. Please.”

_Very well._

It was just a dog. An unwanted pup that had been abandoned by the owner. A dog had an even shorter lifespan than a human, and yet he dared beg for the creature’s life. He was tempted to take the dog out of spite, but decided to grant Henry the chance he had asked for. And it was successful. Henry nursed the dog back to health, naming it Falstaff when his father granted him permission to keep it. 

_Why Falstaff?_

“He is always jolly, and my dear companion. Do you not like it?”

_I always preferred Homer to Shakespeare._

“What about Virgil?”

_I had hoped taking him before he finished the Aeneid would keep the damned thing from seeing the life of day._

Henry had laughed, and it was the most beautiful thing he had heard. A new feeling stirred within him, one that was warmer than the last that Henry had provoked. It felt how he imagined sun would on his skin, a deep and cleansing light that cleared the cobwebs in his ribcage. He wanted to hear it again. 

\---

“Does it hurt? Taking a life?”

_No… I shouldn’t think so. I have never thought to ask, but none have complained._

“I mean… does it hurt you?”

_I- I don’t know._

\---

He came again, this time for Henry’s mother. It had been a long illness, one that lasted through most of Henry’s transition to adulthood. She had suffered more than enough. It was time. If only Henry would agree.

Henry knelt by her bedside, resting his head on the weak hand he had clasped in his stronger ones, muttering fervent prayers to a God he did not even think Henry believed in. Tears were streaming down his face. Henry could sense him, he was sure of it. There were few other ways for him to know. 

“No.” Henry had said, sniffling and shaking his head. “You can’t have her. You can’t take her, she’s my mother.”

_I must._

“No! I won’t let you! I won’t!”

_Do you love her?_

Henry let out a sob, nodding as his tears flowed faster. He was rocking back on his heels. It was a desperate whine that reminded him of the wretched dog that Henry had saved. Desperate and pitiful. The last cry of the breaking that were not sure they could rebuild themselves out of the pieces. He moved forward, placing his hand on Henry’s shoulder.

_Then let her go._

Henry sobbed harder, but refused to close his eyes as he leaned forward, taking the mother’s final breath with a kiss. Eleanor Morgan. Again unremarkable. His job was done. He should have left. Instead, he knelt down and drew Henry into his arms. Henry released his mother and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, weeping into the nape of his neck. His job was to kill, not comfort. Yet he never felt so content as to have Henry in his arms.

\---

_You do not flinch at my voice anymore._

“No, I’ve… I’ve grown to be quite fond of it.”

\---

Henry spent his eighteenth birthday bedridden. Illness had struck him hard and fast, something he had caught while accompanying his father to the docks to inspect their ships. It had not seemed serious, yet he had been unable to eat, and when he had his stomach had refused it violently. He was a healthy young man, but even the healthiest of men could be struck down by illness. 

But Henry looked so beautiful, lying there. His dark brown curls were in stark contrast to his pale skin, his white pillow. His jaw was becoming more defined, showing that he was becoming more man than boy. Illness had made him look gaunt, but if he returned to health his face would be complemented by his high cheekbones. 

He knelt on the bed, sitting so he was near Henry’s head. Henry stirred upon feeling the change, looked up at him with brown eyes. With cracked and blue lips, he smiled.

“Are you here to take me?” He rasped.

He should be. It was his job to take, his existence, this boy had caused more trouble than he was worth already. If he took him, Henry would belong to him. Be a part of him. But he could see the changes Henry’s body would take- his gangly limbs would become strong, his jaw more defined. He would be a beautiful man. And what he would give the world, the kindness and grace. His knowledge that still yearned for more. In his halls, everything was stagnant. Nothing was born, nothing grew, and certainly nothing changed. Just lost souls, continuing on the paths that they had walked in live. 

He wanted to see Henry grow. He wanted to see Henry grow to be beautiful, and formidable in spirit. To see Henry frozen in his halls was a bitter thing, he could not bear the thought. He wanted- he wanted Henry to live. To live and grow, until he became the magnificent being he knew Henry was to become. He wanted to Henry to change.

_No._

Henry’s shirt had fallen from his shoulder as he moved the boy- the man, now- to lean on his chest. Pale skin was exposed, as were the few strands of hair on his chest. He reached out, desperate to touch but almost… fearful. As if he would be burned by touching him. Henry nodded, as much as he could with so little energy. He trailed his hand across Henry’s soft skin. Across the hard shoulder blade, the fragility of his neck, before resting the hand on his cheek. 

He could hear Henry’s heart pounding against ribcage, a thunderous beat for something that should have no beat at all by now. Sweat beaded on Henry’s skin, but it was not from illness. He leaned forward, saw Henry’s lips part. Henry was panting, leaning as close as his body would allow. He closed the gap and placed his lips on Henry’s. It was not the gentle kiss he took lives with. This was hungry, as if he could consume Henry’s soul like a wild dog consuming meat. Henry whimpered, lifting a shaking hand to curl in his hair, pressing the two closer. 

They broke apart. Henry kept his eyes closed, gasping for breath. He was so used to seeing those in their final pains that he was taken aback to see someone in pleasure. It was not the first time he had seen such a thing, with the poor sods who followed _la petite mort_ with actual _mort_. But he had thought them laughable, sometimes even grotesque. Henry was a thing of beauty in his pleasure. And he was laughing.

_Rest. You need strength to heal._

“You… You really aren’t here for my death?”

_No._

“So… so that was just?”

_I wanted to._

“I wanted you to. Kiss me, I mean.” Henry finally opened his eyes, his pupils blown. That emotion stirred inside him again, that one he could not name or define. “Thank you. Will you stay?”

He nodded. Though he should move, his body screamed at the idea of it. All he wanted was to keep Henry in his arms, and it seemed the boy agreed, leaning closer into his body. 

“You’re cold,” Henry murmured. “I should have known you would not have a heartbeat.”

What would it be like, to have a mortal body? One that was not rotten inside, filled with cobwebs and maggots and screams. He could feel each pump of Henry’s blood, each strum of communicating nerves. It shamed him that Henry could not feel the same. If he knew what was inside of his body, would he still attain comfort in his arms? Surely he would be afraid. He did not want Henry to be afraid. 

\---

An awful requirement, he felt, that this new form required a tie to the mortal world. A sliver of the heart, something that would not be missed, to create a bond between this life he was taking on and the life of another. 

“Why not mine?” Henry asked. A bond with Henry was better than all else he could imagine, and yet he could not escape the fear that he would hurt the man. Henry seemed to sense his apprehension, for he grabbed his hand, the one with the wrist that Henry had stabbed in what to Henry was so long ago but to him only moments before. Henry guided his hand beneath the man’s shirt, trailing lightly over his stomach, his chest, until it rested on his beating heart. 

“I want to grant you this.” 

It was easy enough to take a piece of Henry’s heart. Sinking through his skin, his ribcage, until he could tear off a small piece of muscle. Drawing it from Henry was slightly more difficult, and Henry shook as it was removed. A cough, like he had when he was young, and then blood was dribbling down Henry’s chin. Panicking, he ripped the sliver from Henry more quickly than he meant to. Henry collapsed, coughing blood onto the carpet. He reached out, afraid that it would soon be over, but Henry just shook his head.

“I’m alright. Just sore, but nothing more. I want to see you…” Henry broke off to cough again, but flashed him another smile. He nodded slowly, placing the heart on his tongue. A deep breath, and he swallowed. Henry watched with wide eyes as he swallowed a piece of Henry’s heart, before collapsing in his arms.

He wondered if this was what mortals called pain. It was a burning sensation, yet sharp as the blade of a knife, attacking him all over. He was almost tempted to scream. A warmth enveloped him, a soothing warmth that burned hot before calming again. His senses struggled to adjust, his sight, smell, and hearing turned dull while his sense of touch and taste increased. He could barely sense time anymore.

His first realisation was that Henry was somewhat heavy. Then, that Henry was warm, and that the silk shirt he wore was comforting to his bare skin. The man’s eyes flickered, before opening fully. Henry cracked him a toothy smile.

“I didn’t realise you would be naked.”

“Of course I am.” Oh this was strange. His voice was plain, without echo or dread. Human. It would cause none pain to hear it. “Would you expect a babe to be born with clothes?”

“You’re beautiful.” Henry said it with such awe, that he could not believe the words that came from the man’s mouth. He had been called many things, few would call him beautiful. His work, maybe, if they were a certain kind of person. But he himself, rarely would they call him beautiful.

“I should find you clothes.” Henry got to his feet as if he were a newborn colt, shaking and stumbling and leaning on the bedpost for support. He was going to help him, but he was not confident in his own abilities, and soon enough Henry found his balance before heading to his drawers.

“I told father I had found myself a suitable manservant, he was pleased enough. It means we will be able to spend plenty of time together with no suspicion, though I don’t expect you to wait on me.”

He got to his feet. The draft on his body had caused him to notice a desire that must be intrinsically tied to flesh, for although he noticed it in his other form he had not felt it to such a degree. He walked to Henry, as the man rummaged for clothes that he currently had no interest in wearing.

“But what will we call you? Death will not be an acceptable name, I’m afraid- oh.”

He had wrapped his arms around Henry and begun to bite and suck at his neck. He let one hand travel lower until he found on Henry what was making his new body so difficult. Henry gave a low moan in response, turning his head in order to capture his lips. They fell to the bed, him hurrying to remove Henry of that pesky clothing. He had a strong feeling that clothes would be an enemy of his mortal life.

It was ecstasy, to be above Henry, and then inside him as much as Henry was inside of him. To hear Henry’s cries of pleasure, of pain when he bit him too hard or dragged his nails through Henry’s soft skin until blood welled up beneath his fingertips. And then, sated in the candlelight, to watch Henry attempt to gather himself through their debauchery. 

“Adam,” Henry said at last. “The first man. A fine name for you, I think.”

A very fine name indeed.

\---

If one were to hear a maid gossiping about the Morgan household, they would hear soliloquies on how handsome the young master’s new manservant was, how charming his demeanour, and how seductive his eyes. Questions that if he had a speaking voice as nice as that, would his singing be able to rival the young master’s? And all in the village knew how beautiful Henry Morgan’s voice was.

But beneath the giggles was a more sinister murmur. Of how he sent chills up one’s spine. How you would never hear him, nor see him coming or going. He was there when convenient, gone other times, and his sudden appearances had nearly scared poor Bessie Tellinger to death. How he looked at the young master as if he were a piece of meat to be devoured.

Falstaff did not like him, and the creature liked everyone. On his first day, the dog had attacked the man and chewed on his pant leg (a pant leg that had been freshly hemmed, and Annie Cothell swore on her mother’s grave to have originated from Henry Morgan’s wardrobe). He had not even winced, merely staring down at the dog as if Falstaff were some creature from a novel that he wished to examine. One word from the man, and Falstaff had fled with his tail between his legs.

Sir Thomas was even set on edge by the man, expressing discomfort over the notion of being alone in a room with him. If it had been anyone else, he would have found a way to subtly have them fired and removed from his home immediately. Except Henry was besotted. He would spend all his time with his servant and speak of him with such high praise they would think him in love. And Adam clearly adored Henry, would fuss over him yet also discipline him, if it appeared he crossed a line. Sir Thomas could never remove someone who made his son so happy.

So if anyone passed Henry’s bedroom deep in the night, and heard the moans, the cries, the rhythmic creaks of the bed, they would never dare tell. 

\---

It was bliss. To be able to hold Henry in his arms at night, and to watch him grow through the day. Change into a brilliant young man. Find his passion in life. In fairness, it was one Adam wished he would change.

“I have granted you life twice now, what do you plan to do with it?”

“I will become a doctor. I want to heal people.”

He would not be Henry, if he were not a bother. It was not unexpected, that Henry should take to a life of healing when he had spent so long bargaining with Death. But he could not escape the idea that it was the fault of that damned dog, that the little exercise had stoked a fire in Henry that would never die. It was magnificent, certainly, but he knew that Henry would never allow himself to be a mediocre physician.

It did have its benefits. Adam would stroke Henry’s hair as the man read. Teach him all the sneaky ways that someone could die. And teaching Henry to label body parts in Latin was a marvellous foreplay, followed by sinking into him as he recited the treatments for various maladies. 

A fine physician. A great man. But Adam had forgotten that the Morgan family was a member of the gentry. That Henry was the only surviving son, and although his father had not demanded he take on the family business he still had given his son certain expectations. And Henry would never be entirely his, could never be, when Henry had no choice other than to take a wife.

Nora, her name was. Not exceptionally pretty, in Adam’s eyes. But she had a quick wit, a clever tongue, and a mind that could equal his Henry’s when she wanted it to. The bearing of a noblewoman, also, so although she had the ability to speak she also had the wisdom of knowing when to be silent. 

She and Henry were married shortly before Henry reached his twenty-fifth year. A simple wedding, in a church of course (Henry had been uncertain Adam could step on consecrated ground, but there were no bounds on Death). And that night, his Henry had taken her to their house, and consummated their marriage.

It sparked that feeling again. Not the one that filled him with warmth, but the other one. The one that was as harsh as winter’s worst snow, bitter to the touch and with a taste like acid. Jealousy, Henry had called it when Adam had forced it through their bond the night Henry and Nora met. Then, Henry had laughed. 

He did not laugh now, as Adam creeped closer to their wedding bed. He stroked his index finger over her cheek, skin that was not as harsh as that of sun battered servants but still no match for his beloved Henry. Henry, who was watching them in the dark, fearful.

“Don’t,” he whispered. Would they play this game again? There was no need.

“I will not. Do you love her?”

“Not as I love you. But I am fond of her. She is dear to me.”

“If I kill her, you will be upset?”

“Very.” He could still remember that look of hatred, after he had taken Henry’s siblings. Although curious as to how much it would take, he did not wish to provoke that look again. He feared Henry would hate him.

He released sweet Nora, and walked over to Henry. Leaned forward, offering his lips to his lover. As Henry went to capture them, he pulled away, leaving him with only his desire. 

“Now, young master. I will not allow you to be unfaithful to your wife.”

\---

A marriage of convenience grew into one of adoration. Henry and Nora were infatuated with each other, though they debated on such bizarre topics (Henry would not hear a word against Francis Bacon, while Nora would rather he be permitted brief entrance into Adam’s halls and strike the man with one of his own books. Montaigne was her pleasure, and on that she and Adam agreed, though the manner of Bacon’s death had delighted Adam in its sheer stupidity).

Nora even grew fond of Adam, perhaps because her family had not been touched by his hand nearly so often as Henry’s had. Or perhaps it was something macabre in her nature, for she was no longer afraid to touch him and even took to greeting Adam with a kiss to the cheek. Henry never treated Adam like a servant, and soon Nora had done the same, so that to any casual observer it would appear that he were perhaps a brother or other close friend, but never a servant of any kind.

She had her suspicions, of course. Henry did pay Adam, out of societal obligation than any necessity on Adam’s part (he was rarely entertained by hunger or thirst, and his residence was one of Henry’s rooms. Hardly ever would he pay for his entertainment). So even though Adam could buy clothes of his own, as in this body he was shorter than Henry (when in truth he was shorter than no mortal), he still preferred to borrow those of his master’s, with their silk fabric and delectable scent. 

Henry had also developed this nasty habit in which he poured out all his love through his eyes. Adam could see it when the man looked at Nora, the love and care and wonder at his fortune in finding such a wife. So he was sure that Nora could recognise it when Henry looked at him, such a loving gaze that Adam almost found it in him to blush. Yet she did not seem jealous, and with her careful discussion with Adam when they were alone, and her jubilant ones when they were with Henry, it almost appeared that she was attempting to love him also.

Adam was unaccustomed to the love of one, so the love of two was to him an unnatural thing. He could not understand her graciousness, not when he despised the mere thought of Henry giving her an affectionate touch let alone taking her to his bed. So he took it upon himself to confirm his suspicions. In her favour, she did not cower or flee when she found Henry submitting to Adam in the same manner she submitted to her husband. She and Adam had locked their gazes, and he had found in her eyes the same foul beast that lived in his gut.

Henry was such a magnificent man, that he could love two at once with an equal passion and fervor. Nora and Adam were not as magnificent, did not have such room in their hearts. They both loved Henry with such devotion, such possession, that they had no room to love more than Henry alone. It was such a bitter animal, this jealousy, that Adam found himself thinking of Nora as his kin. This beast they would share. It was one Adam doubted Henry would ever partake of.

In their similarity they found their peace. Both would share Henry, and behave as if they received no pain in doing so. But Nora made no more attempts to love Adam, to share the tenderness in her heart with him. On occassion, she did take him to her bed. There was no tenderness there, where she drew more blood from him than many others had dared. Marking her hatred in the wounds she inflicted. Finally he had found someone worthy of Henry.

A remarkable marriage, a loving marriage, but a childless one. It was the only cause for Henry’s sadness. Adam could not understand how Henry could love two people with such devotion, and yet have an aching need in his heart to have more to love. He knew that Henry would be a parent with all the skill he took to every aspect of his life. That the man craved it. But Adam wondered if he and Nora could find room in their hearts for more, so wholly consumed they were with Henry. Perhaps the children would have made more room, or because they were the fruit of Henry’s life they would simply feed from the love Henry received from their hearts.

It was a curiosity Adam had, to see how he and Nora would respond, but a curiosity never fulfilled. He wondered if it was his proximity to the couple that had caused them to be barren. After all, the only infants he knew were those that had died soon after their birth. To be so close with Death, allow him into their hearts and bodies, surely it meant that the ability to create new life had been lost to them. Such a transgression against nature, it would be surprising if they were not punished in some way for it.

Adam found it to hurt, though, that he had inadvertently caused Henry to never achieve what he was so clearly destined for. That he was the cause of Henry’s sadness. But soon being childless was forgotten, when Henry’s father had given him new cause for despair. It allowed Adam a respite from his guilt, another foul emotion that he wished to be rid of quickly. Sir Thomas Morgan should have died at fifty-six, so great was the pain from his disease. But Adam allowed him to linger, for hurting their Henry in such a way. Years of terrible suffering- Adam could not be at fault for granting the wrong mercy.

At fifty-nine years old, Adam greatly enjoyed ripping the life from his lips.

\---  
Adam wondered if Henry had a death wish. It was the only explanation he had for why Henry would go on that voyage. Why he would behave in such a foolish manner. Adam should not have been surprised, that Henry’s tendency to beg for death’s mercy would lead him to do the same from the men pulling the trigger. Certainly, it should have got him killed. Again. 

But Henry Morgan did not die at that man’s bullet. Or when he was thrown overboard. Presumed dead in the shipwreck. If it had been any other, Adam would have taken them long ago. It was the sensible thing to do, put the poor soul out of their misery. But Adam did not take Henry. He refused to take Henry. No matter how much Henry begged, he made certain that the man lived. It was selfish, and would only do the man harm, but Adam did not take him. 

He cared Henry back to health, though it were a long battle, and soon they were returning to England. A new England to when they had left, but one that had not seemed to have changed. Nora was there when they returned, aged prematurely in her grief but otherwise still the same. Harder, perhaps. She had been forced to fight off the leeches that called themselves Henry’s relatives, desiring the Morgan household and wealth. One had even attempted to court her, to ensure he would inherit the Morgan family fortune. It was not love that Adam felt for Nora, but his care for her ensured that he took the man in the most embarrassing way possible.

It was easy to return to their happiness, so much so that Nora even request that he lay with her and Henry both. Perhaps she could spare some love for him afterall. But Adam should have known that the ordeal would change Henry. Change was what Adam had sought from him, yet he hardly expected it to make Henry even more infuriating than before. Because, after endless nights of sleep being taken from him by nightmares and distress arriving after the smallest thing, Henry told Nora everything.

Adam was used to people gazing at him with fear. It should not have hurt when Nora began to do so as well. But it did. It hurt more when she gave Henry the same gaze. She was afraid of them. Henry had pleaded with him to show her, when she did not believe him. But Adam could not. Surely it would send her mad, would cause her to suffer and lose what Adam found so appealing in her. 

“Even if I show you, you will not believe.”

He and Nora were alone in the drawing room. In the hearth, the fire was crackling, the only light to ward off the shadows. If she looked, if anyone looked, they could see Adam’s true nature in the shadow he cast. No one ever looked. Instead she was turned away from him, one hand placed on the back of Henry’s favourite chair to steady herself. 

“It’s madness, all of it. I forgave Henry loving another, being a sodomite, because he loved me also.” She turned to face him. “But his claims cannot be believed. I assume you kept him alive, so he fancied you some great protector. He thinks himself immortal. I fear what he will do, only to realise he is not.”

“So you will send him away?”

“I must.” She was crying. “If he is to be well, at least to be safe, I must.”

In fairness, she could not know. Could not know what those places were like, what they did to their ‘patients’. Could not know how often he was forced to come, to take, and how he wished he could take all of them to rid them of the pitiful existence those monsters had forced them into. How he wished he could rip the supposed doctors to shreds, decorate the walls in their blood and their gore or force them into the same torture they put those poor souls through. 

“I know you love him, Nora. I know you are trying to help him.” He was drawing closer to her, retreating back into his true form. “But I must protect him.”

She had fought back, clawing at him and shrieking. Nora knew this would be her end. He did not always grant the dying a look at his face, but he wanted her to know. The beast in his gut was preening at having subdued her, that from this moment on he would have to share Henry no longer. He wanted her to know that she was wrong.

_I truly am sorry, Nora._

His voice caused her to unleash a pained cry, attempting to bat at her head even though her wrists were locked tightly in his grip. He did not take her life with a gentle kiss, nor a harsh one, but one of passion. They kissed as they did in the throes of pleasure, with the fire and hatred that they had only for each other. A remarkable woman. She was dead.

Maids found her corpse in the morning. Claimed she had been struck by a sudden illness, what a terrible shame. She was such a marvellous woman. Such a tragedy, for her to stay so strong when she believed her beloved husband was dead, only for death to take her once her husband returned. The poor master, did you hear his weeping? He loved her dearly. How terrible. 

Henry had not forgiven him for that. Turned sex into a bloodsport that would rival Nora at her fiercest, then wept in his arms afterwards. He was a good master of the household, and refused any urging for him to marry again. His sister’s children would be his heirs. And they inherited wealth young, when he and Henry were forced to flee.

It would do them no good for people to realise that Henry did not age.

\---

“Take me, please. Adam, it has been so long.”

“No.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took longer than I planned, but I hope it was worth the wait.

Time tipped her hourglass, and soldiered on. Around them, the world continued to grow beneath her ministrations. It was a pool of alteration, of living and dying as the years swam by. Everything moved around them, yet they did not move. Two points which could not be touched by the cycles that echoed around through the living world. 

For Adam, it was the natural state of being. He had spent eternity in stasis, gliding through the world without it ever touching him in return. Henry however found it a more uncomfortable existence, to exist in such emptiness. To feel so removed with every mark he made when the world could not mark him in return. For Adam, it was power. For Henry, loneliness. 

So they took the fleeting world around them and breathed it in. No longer was it a book to read, the most thrilling novel that engrossed men so much they died when they turned the last page. Instead it became a cup from which they would drink, a never ending nourishment with all of life’s fancies and passions. 

Falstaff had died before Nora had, while Henry was doing his damndest to get himself killed in the ocean. Old age killed him, in an act bordering on overdue considering the pup was nearly exceeding the life span of his species. Henry had been upset, of course, and Adam had briefly attempted to comfort him in spite of finding the whole ordeal of death to be one he could view with only a casual detachment. After a comment that at least the mutt had not been executed at the stake like its namesake, it was decided that Adam should not attempt to comfort any longer. For everyone’s sake.

Henry’s sister had lived to old age before gracing Adam’s halls, greeting him with recognition when he came for her. Whether it was as Adam the servant, or from when Death came for her siblings, he did not know. He was not always an unfamiliar sight, though only certain people could see him. The image of the grim reaper had come from somewhere, afterall. She had been at peace, and for once Henry had just accepted death as it was. 

With them gone, Henry lost all his ties to the mortal world. He had barely known his nieces and nephews, and could not approach them anyway. Though their relationship was not close, they knew him well enough to be able to recognise their uncle. The uncle that was supposedly dead, and should be old and infirm if he was not. Certainly, they would be suspicious to see him looking as young as he did when they were children.

So they left Henry’s dreary home in the country. Unused to such freedom from the hands of life, to be cut from tangible ties to the world, Adam expected Henry to fall like a marionette. Misery had taken him for a while, yes, loneliness swallowing him whole. But soon, free from reminders of the life he could no longer have, Henry learned the appreciation of new people, of bonds that did not last long yet were made of the strongest ropes. A thirst was born in him, one to consume the experiences life had to offer with a vigour that Adam had never seen in him throughout the man’s early days.

Adam had been delighted to show Henry more of the world outside of a slaveship. London had of course kept Henry’s heart, but so to had New York. Paris had enchanted them both, Henry losing himself to the artwork and culture, attempting to persuade Adam to get lost also. Adam would indulge him while reminiscing silently of the blood that had once poured through the streets. The revolution was over, but Death still played his games.

Kings fell, and oh did he have fun with the succession. He had no vendetta against George, but it amused him greatly to see a man wait so long for the crown only to have such little time with it. Just a bit of enjoyment, unlike the early days of the Empire. The succession crisis of Augustus had been personal- he had been eager to discover what the child of Caesar and Cleopatra would go on to do when Augustus had the boy assassinated. Even Death regretted taking some, but when his hand was forced it took too much exertion on his part compared to its worth. Unlike the Roman rule, the English crown passed on without much fuss. Soon, England had a Queen, and with her new technology. It was a new age.

The Victorians were Adam’s playground. With their fascination with the occult, their penny dreadfuls and shocking shillers, it was a reborn obsession with death, with the dark and forbidden. But also with love. It was salacious tales being told, breaking from the chains the world had dealt them and the taboos society imposed on them. A resurgence of art to challenge the new fears. Rather than the paranoia of death, it was a curiosity about the dead coming back to life. It made Henry, with his abnormal existence, rather uncomfortable. Adam _adored_ it.

Henry feared that someone would read too many books and notice that Henry was not normal. The closest the came was the Irishman, who became fascinated with Henry’s pure heart and enjoyment of life, Adam’s adoration with the immoral, and created a novel from his insinuations. He had understood some, had guessed at Henry’s unending youth, but life was far simpler than relying on some painting locked away in an attic.

And so much death. Sweet death, bitter death. Workers lost to the industrial revolution, men lost to lawlessness, women lost to their husbands. Even children swallowed up by the mechanical greed that had swept the new generation. A peaceful death, a gruesome death, a violent death. He was offered all in this new world, and could not help but wonder if corpses were truly ready to rise from their graves as the tales swore they were. It would be a glorious day if they were. 

Perhaps Adam was enjoying the new world a bit too much. Henry still loved him dearly, but did all he could to ensure that Adam could not unleash true massacre. His scalpel and remedies kept many from Adam’s grasp, and though he found it an annoyance, he could not help but admire Henry’s dedication to the living. Not that Henry believed him.

“Are you the ripper?” Henry had asked one night, his naked flesh illuminated by the candlelight. Lying on his stomach as Adam trailed kisses down his back, so he could not see Henry’s face. He had been called from his practice by the policemen of Whitechapel to examine the new body, another young woman torn to pieces beneath someone’s knife. A magnificent display of brutality. Adam only chuckled at the suggestion.

“No, my love.” He had no need to do the work himself, not when another was so eager to do it for them. “But I have given him my hearty endorsement.”

He could not wait for the day that the ripper was beneath his lips, when he could force the suffering of the victims onto this artist of death. A brutal ending, horrific, worthy of the creature that had slain in such a way. It seemed Henry could sense his delight, for he shivered beneath Adam’s ministrations. But he did not turn away, he never would. He was too accustomed to death’s touch to ever turn away.

Soon the Victorians faded away, and yet another age was born. One heralded by his sister. She was the youngest of the four. Death had been born in the same moment as Life, twins that had begun creation. Pestilence and Famine came soon after, for everything decayed eventually. They were his natural siblings, the causes and inevitable consequence of death.

It was only her that was not formed alongside the natural world. War was a man made thing, afterall. The youngest though she may be, she brought with her all of her siblings, until Adam’s halls were fit to bursting. And it was War who had witnessed the friction caused by so rapid a change, the swift increase in the efficiency of weaponry. In the twentieth century, War found her home.

Russia, The Great War, Germany. All crumbled beneath their fingertips. Henry was horrified at the turmoil, the young men that would die at his table no matter how hard he fought to save them. Adam had begun to fear that Henry would crumble alongside the dynasties, when a new war broke out determined to upstage the last one.

The death camps had turned even Adam’s stomach. It had made him certain that he would lose his beloved, when even he could not bear the stench. But Adam was beginning to discover that life was full of surprises. Henry had been desperate to keep his kindness, his joy. Had claimed that the brutality of the world required it even more. He could no longer grow physically, but his strength. Oh how his strength increased.

“I did not do this.” Adam had never been so desperate to distance himself. Especially here, maggots feasting on the decaying body parts beneath their feet. 

“I know. We did.”

It was a horrid place, Auschwitz. One that he had been forced to return to many times, so much so that he could not fathom how there could be more souls to take. He had hoped that Henry would stay away, his heart too kind to survive something so horrible, even if they were there to rescue. But he should not have feared, for a heart such as Henry’s could find the light in even the most darkest of places.

Abigail, her name was. A nurse, barely finished her schooling before she volunteered for the armed forces. A beautiful woman, even amongst the horrors. Or perhaps more beautiful because of them. She would have been enough, surely, enough to rejuvenate the light that Henry had kept alive only through sheer determination. But she was made greater for the life held in her arms. A baby. A healthy baby, one whose parents Adam had taken earlier. Babies did not last long amongst so much death. Truly a miracle. One that Henry took to immediately.

They named him Abraham, at the hospital. Adam’s suggestion of Moses was not entertained, though he found it to be more apt. At least it was not Falstaff. He was adored by all, a sign of life and hope even as the soldiers surrounding him continued dying. A suggestion that their suffering had not been in vain afterall. Adam found that few things made a soul more content than to know that their tribulations had all been worth it.

Henry had claimed reluctance at making the boy his own, but Adam knew that it was only a delay of the inevitable. The man was born for life, born to nurture. Adam may have taken that chance from him once, he would not allow it to happen again. And the boy was strong, in spite of his strife. He would grow to an old man. 

And the woman, this Abigail, she too was a part of this inevitability. A woman of strength, willing to take suffering and give love in return. Nora had been a match for Henry’s mind, but Abigail was a match for his heart. Not to say she was not intelligent, but while Nora had been entertained by examinations of the physical world, Abigail took to poetry. Claimed that the emotions of mortality showed more truth of the world than the revolution of the earth. 

Oh how Henry loved her. How she loved him. Both loved their son as if he had hung the moon. A perfect and happy family. And yet… there remained a place for Adam. Abraham loved to be bounced in Adam’s arms, had been content with Adam’s reminiscing of fallen empires to be his lullabyes. Abigail had spent many a night wasting away the hours discussing with Adam Penelope’s role as the ideal woman. And Henry loved, and was loved, and his heart no longer ached for what he had lost.

It was a relationship without secrets. Henry, with his concerning aptitude for danger (especially when combined with romance), had taken a knife to the gut at the hands of Abigail’s former betrothed. They would have disappeared into the night, they certainly should have, but Henry could not bear to leave without giving his son one last goodbye. There was no accusations of madness, perhaps the greatest advantage of fantasy over science. Instead there was only unconditional love. It had been the best decision they had ever made. 

To continue loving Henry was not unexpected. Learning of his true nature, not impossible. But Adam could not fathom the same for him. He could not figure out how, but Abigail knew. She knew what Adam was, almost from the moment they met. In the midst of one of their talks, she claimed to have seen death when he had taken her mother. That she would recognise him, no matter the form. He had thought it to be a flight of fancy, but she had looked at him and she had known.

Nora had done all in her power to force her heart to love Adam. Abigail simply did. There was no jealousy in her heart when she watched Henry and Adam together. Only love. She did not turn away when Adam showed her their love, strengthened their passion rather than dampening it. So he found himself letting her into her heart. Jealousy did not turn its fangs on her.

A strange family they made. Abraham with two fathers and a mother. Henry and Adam, frozen in age. Adam so distanced from humanity. But they were a family. And they were happy.

\---

Henry’s fascination with America was strange to Adam. A young country that had grown so strong was admirable, but dying appeared to be more malicious there. Henry admired their optimism, something that people usually admired in Henry, but it could at times lead to him being blind to their faults. He knew Adam was busy often, but he suspected the man believed it to be illness, rather than murder. 

The psychiatric hospitals had not improved much either. So much so that Adam had found himself working within them. Create change from inside, rather than passively watch the industry that sickened him so greatly continue to build without restriction. Henry still regarded them with fear, knowing that one slip of the tongue regarding his past, or his relationship with Adam, could find them both locked away.

Soon enough though, Abraham considered himself an American. It was an interesting phenomenon to Adam, that of an immigrant. A Jewish man from Poland, adopted by an English couple, with the same patriotism as the men who had American lineage spawning back both sides for generations. Perhaps it was that that had led him to fight in that meaningless war. A desperate desire to prove himself on the battlefield. It was the belief of many who fought, to prove themselves as their parents had, ignoring the haunted looks behind their eyes. 

Adam’s sister was adamant that she had little part in this one, that the mortals were doing it of their own accord. It left a bitter taste, taking lives without reason. Knowing now that they were not just people, but the nagging thought in his mind that they were Abraham’s age. Henry’s heart had broken when Abraham had shown them his papers, had spoken so joyfully of doing what was good for his country. Adam’s had broken too.

“Go with him. Keep him safe,” Henry had begged. He had done all he could to keep Abraham from leaving, but the boy had been resolute in his decision. He had inherited the stubbornness of his parents. 

“I will.” Adam had sworn it into Henry’s skin, had said his goodbyes. 

Abraham had grown into an admirable young man, a loyal soldier to his fellows. Adam could protect his life, but not what he saw, and soon he was wholly disillusioned with Vietnam. Abe became hungry for change, to make the world better. War had horrified him, but there was little time before he was transmuting that horror into strength. He was most certainly his father’s son.

The newborn fire was not all the good that had come from the mud. Adam was not sure what he had expected when he had stood at Abe’s side, but he did not have the optimism to expect them to grow closer. It was a bomb that taught Abe what his parents had been telling him his whole life. Abraham took shrapnel to the chest. Adam should have had his head blown off. 

They both should have died, in the mud. Mortal as he was, Abe should have bled out quickly, but he was too young. He was not ready to die. In the camps, Adam had sworn the babe would grow to an old man. He refused to let the boy make him a liar. He refused to lose him. Adam was not ready for him to die. 

He did not cower when he saw what Adam was. Instead, he had smiled. 

“All these years, I thought my Dad was a bit of a crackpot. A crackpot with some really good skin. Guess not, huh.” Adam had found himself smiling, and keeping the shrapnel away from Abraham’s heart or any other organs. The damage had still been enough to send him home, alongside a brother in arms who had lost a leg. It did not really matter, the war ended soon enough anyway.

The sight of Henry and Abigail after so long made his heart ache. She looked older than him now, in her fourties while he would forever be thirty-five. But their love had not died, had not even dwindled. It burned hotter than ever before, both for each other and for them. They wept when Abe and Adam returned, clutching Abraham so tightly that he was not sure they would ever let go. Abe had rolled his eyes at their fuss, but Adam could see that he had missed them almost more than they him. 

That evening, after a dinner Abigail had made that could fill a family of five at Christmas, Abe had taken his leave to have a drink with some of his army friends. He had brushed off his parents’ disappointment, giving them only a wink as he left their apartment. Henry had seemed confused, until realisation had dawned on him and his cheeks turned bright red.

“So he knows?” He asked, rasping as if he were a man abandoned in the desert. There was a moment of silence, before Abigail began to giggle into her hand. 

“Well, he is certain of my existence. As for the other… I suppose he would have had to figure it out eventually.” 

Abigail had laughed harder as Henry dipped his head in embarrassment. Henry had never before considered their relationship to be a source of shame, but for his son to be so frank about it seemed to shock his gentlemanly sensibilities. He may enjoy putting on a facade of bluntness in all manners, yet his own sexual activities still appeared to startle him into the prudish nature of the Georgians. 

Adorable as Henry’s embarrassment was, Adam had yearned for the other man for years while on the battlefield. He stood out of his chair, crossed around the table, and pulled Henry into a hungry kiss that was returned with equal fervor. Abigail ceased her laughter, watching them with sparkling eyes and a knowing smile. He and Henry parted, briefly.

“We missed you, darling,” Abigail said. It was a strange thing to be loved.

\---

The world continued to change. Social revolution took hold. The downtrodden refusing to bow to their oppressors any longer. Death did not take a holiday, but he slowed down in the latter half of the century. No longer was he needed on such a grand scale as he had at the beginning. He missed the fascination of the Victorian era, but found himself besotted with the family he had in this one.

The world continued to change, and they changed with it. Abe left home, got married, got divorced, then married her again. If he and Henry could, they would begin to grow grey hair as they fretted over their son and his love for women with happy trigger fingers. Henry had always been the charmer, but it seemed his son would overtake him. 

Abigail grew older, wiser, and Adam began to notice, sadder. Her son now looked older than his fathers, and no one would believe Henry to be her husband. He knew she could feel her mortality, could feel herself drawing closer to the day that Adam would take her into his halls. They both could feel it when he held her in his arms, when they could hear Henry and Abe so heartily enjoying life. 

She was miserable. He could see it in her eyes. Abigail had begun to refuse Henry’s touch, an act which wounded the man considerably. But she had drawn closer to Adam’s. It was a horrid end for a magnificent woman, one that she was resigned to. He could feel the beginning of it in her heart, that dreaded beast. That Adam would continue living, with Henry and Abe. That the three of them would continue on without her. She did not realise the ache that would be born in their hearts with her gone.

At seventy, Abigail knew she would soon be dead. That Henry was now half her age. She told Adam, in the light of a streetlamp through their window, that she would not allow Henry the torment of watching her slowly die. He was such a tender hearted man. Surely, it would kill him. This plan of hers could also. But as much as it was for Henry, it was also for her. 

“I have lived a good life, Adam. A happy life. I have loved and I have been loved, more than I thought I deserved. But it’s reached an end. Happily ever afters conclude in death too.”

She had approached him, knife in her hand. Rested her head on his breast. He had lifted his hand, stroked it through her hair. Silver now, no longer the golden blonde it had been in her youth. Just as beautiful. 

“Will you hold me? As I…”

“Of course.”

Abigail had lifted the knife to her throat. It was a quick death. The knife severed the artery, spouting dark blood that had stained her neck, his face, and the carpet. She had collapsed, but Adam kept his promise. He held her as the blood drained from her body, caressing her face. And when the time came, pressed his lips to hers, and gently took her life away.

He had buried her in secret, in an Anglican cemetery near a lake. He sent word to Abe, the location of her tombstone, so their son could say his goodbyes. Alongside it he would send an apology, that he could not allow Abe to be there when they buried her. Adam hoped Abe would understand why, that Henry would surely have begged to be buried with her. They had lost one, they could not bear to lose another.

Henry was never meant to know. They knew it was a harsh punishment for a man who had committed no crime, but hoped that it was better for him to believe that she had just run away rather than take her own life. Abigail had been especially adamant that he believe she just died in obscurity, a little old lady on a hill, so that they could continue on without her.

“Don’t tell him. Never tell him of my cowardice. That I was too scared to live without a single one of you, so I made you all live without me instead.”

Henry was never meant to know. But he had. An instinctual knowledge that a piece of his heart had died. Perhaps it was just the heart of the romantic, that Henry and Abigail’s souls had been so connected that when she died he felt it as if it were an earthquake. Or perhaps the jokes of his colleagues were true, and Henry did indeed have a sixth sense for death. He and Adam always had been more attuned to each other than normal.

Adam had hoped that there would at least be some time, that the letter Abigail wrote and ordered he deliver to Henry would be enough to ease his fears. It was foolish of Adam to expect Henry to do what was expected. The man had drunk his sorrows when she disappeared, and had smelled the truth on Adam when he returned. 

“Why?” Such a simple word. Adam did not know it could be filled with such heart wrenching pain. Henry looked as if he were a broken man, more so than when Nora had died. As if his heart had snapped into pieces, and could never be whole again. 

“She asked me to. I could not refuse her.”

Henry gave a feral yell and attacked, beating his fists on Adam’s chest as a child would. The man was sobbing, crying her name even though she could not hear him. She would never hear him again. The Victorians may have fancied ghosts, but Abigail had been far too content in life to become one.

Once he exhausted himself, Henry slid to the floor, sobbing and clutching Adam’s knees. It was pitiful. Far more pitiful than the boy dying in his parents’ bed, too weak to raise his head. More pitiful than the young man meant to die on his birthday. Far more pitiful than the man who lost his wife twice. The cries of a widower. They were…

They were unremarkable. Ordinary in every way. Adam had heard them many times before, through many lifetimes. Never had he felt remorse. But now, now he felt heartache. His beloved was weeping at his feet, something that he could not comprehend. His other love had just been taken by his lips. He was death, it should not be something he felt remorse over. He was Death. And he was grieving.

“Take me too.” It was a broken plea. One that he should have expected. Henry would never have wanted to live without her.

“No.”

“Why not?!” Henry wailed as if it was a funeral lamentation. Adam supposed that it was. A funeral for Abigail. A funeral for them all. They had spent centuries together. Perhaps this would be what broke them apart.

“Because I love you.”

“You loved her! That’s why you took her! Please!”

“No.”

“I’ll do anything,” Henry sobbed. Two hundred years old. Two hundred years old, and still the ten year old boy pleading from the bed sheets.

“...You have nothing to give me.”

The look in Henry’s eyes was manic. A fury, mixed with grief and loss, love and hate in equal measure. It was not a look Adam ever expected to see in Henry’s eyes before, not directed at him. Henry loved far too much to look at someone with such hatred. He did not think Henry capable of hating someone he loved. Maybe he had loved Abigail more. Henry gritted his teeth.

“But I have something I can take.”

That damned letter opener. He had forgotten he had given it back. Certainly, he did not expect Henry to have kept it. Maybe it was some macabre keepsake. It was their first meeting, afterall. But this time, this time Henry did not aim for the wrist. He did not even strike Adam at all. Instead, Henry turned the weapon on himself, forcing it through his chest until it pierced his heart. A sharp pain erupted in Adam’s chest, as the bond began to die. He did not want it to die. _He_ did not want to die. He did not want Henry to leave him.

Henry grabbed the back of Adam’s neck and pulled him down to where Henry had collapsed onto the floor. Forced their lips together. Adam did not want to take, but as his mortal body began to crumble he lost his control. Henry’s life tasted so very sweet, as if it were Life itself. A beautiful life. Remarkable not only in the events, but the strength with which it was enjoyed. All lives had to come to an end. Tears fell down his face as Henry slumped in his arms. A scream began to whip through the room, one of emotional anguish and pain . The pain of all lifetimes, of all griefs, as Adam’s body fell to pieces in its rapid decay. So Henry Morgan died, in a small New York apartment rather than an English mansion. 

And Adam was gone.

\---

It was a joke he enjoyed to hear, in its awfulness. The idea of going to a retirement village dressed as death. Of course, he was only one old man. And it was not a mere mortal dressed as death that walked beside him, but Death himself. Still, it pleased him to think of it as a fine piece of gallows humour, if the history was not so tangled. 

Abe had been stunned at what had happened. That Henry had managed to force Death’s hand. Something, Adam had told him, the man was rather fond of doing, but could only succeed at if Adam was not particularly set on the outcome. He was not sure if Adam existed anymore. All he was now was a cloaked and shadowy figure, one that had a tendency to mope about Abe’s antique shop all day, killing off the insects and any pot plant Abe had added to brighten up the place.

He had been upset at the events that had killed his parents. But so had Adam. It was unusual, to have a father be a non-physical entity trailing beside you. Of course, it was also unusual to have three parents, two of whom did not age. Nothing about Abe’s family could be considered anything but unusual. He would not change it for the world. 

Abe could feel old age setting into his bones. It was not surprising, he was an old man. One who had spent his life, according to Henry, doing things that made it seem like he was desperate to shorten it. But he had never been in a rush to die. Had just accepted that he would, sooner than he would maybe like. Still, he was determined to enjoy every second of it. 

He was a Morgan, afterall. They were all too familiar with death. But if anyone could persuade Death to enjoy life, it would be one of them. It ran in the family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Henry being the inspiration for Dorian Gray is largely due to Ion Gruffudd's role in Wilde, in which he played the actual inspiration for Dorian. 
> 
> George IV was regent for a long time, because of his father's madness, but was not actually crowned King of England until quite late in life and died not long after. 
> 
> Augustus also had significant crisis with succession, but his issue was finding a successor. Everyone he chose kept dying, until he was forced to nominate his step-son, who he was not very fond of and kept pushing aside if someone better came along. Adam's enjoyment over this crisis because of what Augustus did to Caesarion is based on my own feelings, but I feel that he would find it amusing anyway especially considering canon Adam's relationship to Caesar. 
> 
> Shakespeare's Falstaff is widely agreed to be based on Sir John Oldcastle, who had been the companion of Henry V in Henry's youth. He was executed by being burned at the stake for leading a religious movement that was plotting to kill the now King and his brothers. Henry V did not have good taste in father figures.
> 
> There have been arguments that Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, was meant to represent the perfect wife due to being a perfect match for Odysseus in intelligence and also for her loyalty to her husband even when there was no reason to be. I thought Abigail may have quite enjoyed such a character, because Penelope is awesome.
> 
> Also, the comparisons between Nora and Abigail aren't meant to be one is better than the other. Simply that they are quite different people (but both are still amazing).
> 
>  
> 
> Well that is the end, I hope you all enjoyed it! Comments are always welcome.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that is the closest I'll probably ever come to explicit sex. Part Two should be coming soon, depending on editing speed and internet access.
> 
> Comments are welcome, as always.


End file.
